A half-million acres of the best land in the six counties was to be made available to either "Undertakers" or "Servitors," who would hold their land from the king for a specified rent. The former were ideally English or Lowland Scots, while the latter, whose terms were less generous, were usually Scots. Naturally they had to take the Oath of Supremacy recognizing the king as head of the church. They were expected to recruit settlers from England and Scotland as their tenants on the land. Plans were made for the formation of a number of towns. The incumbent native landowners, whether owners themselves or tenants of the exiled earls, were dispossessed and less attractive parcels of land were given to them. Several thousand settlers came in the next few years, primarily from Scotland, and several new towns were established.
However, the colonization was never complete. Many of the undertakers or servitors found it easier to recruit natives, especially if they wound up with more land than expected because of inaccurate mapping. In addition, many settlers did not remain on the sites to which they had originally come, but moved on elsewhere gaining more land by various legal and not so legal manners. This left a religiously mixed population in many areas, which would become the root of difficulties that have persisted to the present time. One undertaker was the city of London, whose territory of settlement included the town and the county of Londonderry. Another side of the story was that of the dispossessed. Many had acquiesced to being confined to less favored areas. Others, especially if they had been the warriors for the chieftains, became embittered and took to the mountains and the substantial woods of the time to pursue a populist outlaw, or "Robin Hood," role in anticipation of an eventual return of the earls.
World History
